Important Pair of Gothic Style Wrought Iron Landiers with Fleur-de-Lys Spurs

These exceptional landiers — the tall, multi-tiered andirons whose name recalls the great fireplace irons of the medieval French household — represent one of the most impressive types of decorative ironwork in the French tradition. At nearly a metre in height, this pair occupies the monumental scale appropriate to the great château fireplaces for which the Gothic Revival taste of the late 19th century provided the ideal setting.

Each landier rises through a sequence of tiered sections, marked at intervals by horizontal branches or spurs of forged iron terminating in fleur-de-lys motifs — the sovereign heraldic flower of French Gothic ornament, here rendered with the direct and vigorous quality characteristic of the finest Neo-Gothic smithwork of the period. The summit of each upright is crowned with a complex trefoil openwork element, among the most recognisable of all Gothic Revival motifs. The bases adopt a splayed tripod form with curved feet, providing stability appropriate to the considerable height of the piece.

The landier as a functional type dates to the medieval period in France, where such tall tiered irons served as roasting supports and pot hangers over the great kitchen hearths of the aristocracy. By the 19th century their revival was entirely decorative, produced for the large fireplaces of the châteaux and hôtels particuliers whose owners embraced the Gothic and Troubadour styles fashionable from the Romantic period onward.

Objects of rare presence and historical resonance, these landiers would command any substantial room — whether a genuine period fireplace or a contemporary interior that draws upon the architectural vocabulary of the French Middle Ages.